


Kiss Me Sad Adieu

by Meldanya



Series: So Wait and Pray [2]
Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Divorce, F/M, Ficlet, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 06:46:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6505480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meldanya/pseuds/Meldanya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1926. Rosie Robinson is packing up her parlour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kiss Me Sad Adieu

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fire_Sign](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Sign/gifts).



> This was written in an afternoon after a dare from Fire_Sign. It's a companion piece to [Smile The While](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6433471).
> 
> The song she's playing is [If You Were The Only Girl (in the world)](https://youtu.be/N2GugRbBjnk). 
> 
> [Sonnets From the Portuguese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnets_from_the_Portuguese) is a collection of love sonnets from Elizabeth Barrett Browning to her husband.

Mrs. Rosemary Robinson looked around her old parlour, feeling a pang at the layer of dust everywhere. She took out a handkerchief to wipe down the sideboard, before placing her bag down.

The wardrobe upstairs was empty of her clothes, her quilts and pillows had been gently packed away. She’d left him the china, while carefully wrapping up her grandmother's tea set. Her aprons were gone from the kitchen, the dining room looked bereft without her pictures on the wall. Dust drifted through the sunbeams. Only the parlour was left to pack. 

She started sorting through the books on the shelf — opening each to the flyleaf to see which books were hers and which were Jack’s: _Jack Robinson_ , _Miss Rosie Sanderson_ , _Mrs. Rosie Robinson_. She quickly worked through their library: L.M. Montgomery, Austen, Emily Bronte, Miles Franklin, Wordsworth, the Collected Shakespeare, Dickens, Kipling, Conan Doyle, Wilkie Collins, D.H. Lawrence — all either placed in her trunk, or put back on the shelf. She knew each book well, too well, having spent so many evenings with them over the years in here: Jack one room over his study.

Rosie paused when she came to _Sonnets from the Portuguese_. She quickly glanced at the flyleaf, knowing what would be on there: _My beloved Jack, ‘I love thee to the depth and breadth and height, My soul can reach,' forever your Rosie. _Poor silly romantic fool, she thought, and put it back on the shelf. She didn’t dare open the slim copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets beside it — she knew all too well what Jack’s youthful scrawl said inside.__

Books done, music next. Rosie decided to take it all — Jack hadn’t touched the piano since the war, although he always had listened politely, if absently, when she played. She was practically done packing the music, when she stumbled across an old favourite — impulsively, she smoothed it out, lifted the piano cover, and played:

 _If you were the only girl in the world_  
_and I were the only boy_  
_Nothing else would matter in the world today_  
_We could go on loving in the same old way_

She remembered when Jack played this song for her over and over again in his mother’s parlour, singing it to her in that deep voice, his fingers running over the keys far faster than hers could. He'd tease her about needing to practice to keep up with him. “For my Rosie,” he’d scribbled at the top of this score. 

Rosie blinked back tears — she would _not_ start crying for her marriage in the middle of her estranged husband's parlour. She would not start thinking about the long nights she’d spent in this room, waiting for Jack, only for him to go straight to the study once he was home. She would not think about her garden out back that he had never touched. She would not think about cooking him Sunday dinners, only to sit in silence while they ate. 

_I would say such wonderful things to you_  
_There would be such wonderful things to do_  
_If you were the only girl in the world_  
_and I were the only boy._

Hands shaking, she closed the piano. She started pulling music out back out of the box: Bach, Schumann, some waltzes. She left them on the piano, just in case. With a small grin, Rosie also added some of her new Cole Porter melodies. Her boyish sweetheart would have gotten such a kick out of them.

The packing was finished, the boxes were labelled. Rosie looked around the room again — you would never know she had lived here. She thought back to the pretty little parlour of 1919, and how delighted she had been with it. She had been right: her Jack would have loved it. Only he never got a chance to see it. 

A quiet tread sounded behind her. He was back earlier than usual from the station. 

“Rosie?”

“Hullo Jack.”

“Finished?”

"I think so. Father’s men will be around in the morning.”

A brief nod. “I’ll be here.” 

Rosie returned the nod, straightened her hat, and swept past her husband to the door. 


End file.
